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That’s 14 million euros in the round closed by edtech startup Futura. The round, led by Eurazeo, a French fund in its first significant investment in an Italian startup, also features United Ventures, already an investor in the company, Axon Partners Group, and tech entrepreneurs such as Dario Brignone and Alberto Dalmasso, founders of Satispay, and Alessandro Fracassi, founder of MutuiOnline.
Futura was founded in 2020 by Andrea Chirolli, Francesco Salvatore and Lorenzo Pinto. The company develops artificial intelligence models that personalize study processes and optimize students’ learning trajectories, simulating the experience of a highly skilled private professor. Using the platform, students are 3.5 times more likely to pass tests than traditional methods.
After the seed round of 1.8 million in 2022, Futura has experienced rapid growth, tripling revenues each year. With the new financing, the company aims to expand throughout Europe and develop new products and business lines, after initially focusing on medical school entrance test preparation.
Education for all
The current educational model fails to meet the needs of individual students because of its uniform and standardized approach, which often generates disinterest and difficulty in studying. This problem is even more pronounced for students from less privileged backgrounds, for whom the high costs of personalized educational services are often unaffordable, amplifying existing inequalities.
Futura believes that artificial intelligence presents an opportunity to revolutionize learning processes, making personalization accessible on a large scale. Indeed, Futura’s mission is to ensure access to excellent education for all by adapting, through its artificial intelligence algorithms, the delivery of the highest quality content to the evolving needs of students, thus simulating the learning experience with a highly qualified private teacher.
Futura will use the funds raised to strengthen its technology platform and further invest in artificial intelligence. The company is also planning to expand into new lines of business and increase its presence in Europe. To realize these ambitious plans, Futura plans to double the size of its team over the next year, with a focus on growth in Italy and Spain.
In order to attract the best talent in the market, Futura places great emphasis on its strongly people-oriented corporate culture and its highly competitive selection process, emphasizing its commitment to excellence.
“This round marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Futura. It will enable us to intensify our investment in technology and people. An extraordinary team and an environment where everyone can grow by giving their best has been the key to achieving this goal. I am convinced that our unique combination of talent and culture will enable us to attract great talent to our industry,” Francesco Salvatore, co-founder of Futura, says in a note
“Futura offers a solution that adds value to the entire educational ecosystem in Italy. We are excited to collaborate with Andrea, Lorenzo, Francesco and the Futura team as they leverage their unique AI capabilities to build the next leader in education in Europe,” adds Alexandre Dewez, vice president of Eurazeo
“Futura is responding to a huge problem through an innovative approach that leverages the latest technology. We are happy to continue to support their vision of helping many more students achieve their goals,” says Paolo Gesess, co-founder and managing partner, United Ventures
“It is with great excitement that we announce our partnership with Eurazeo and United Ventures as part of the Futura team. Together, we embark on a journey to establish Futura as a leading force in European education,” says Manuel Monge, investment manager, Axon Partners Group
Exit for Zest and the support of Klecha & Co.
The deal also results in the first exit for Zest (the merged entity of Digital Magics and LVenture), which reports that it generated a 15x return on initial investment and was finalized as part of the round.
In fact, Futura was accelerated in 2021 by LUISS EnLabs’ 18th LUISS EnLabs, Zest’s accelerator program born out of a joint venture withLuiss University, and closed a €1.8 million seed round in 2022 with leading venture capital funds, including Ithaca Ventures, Exor Seeds and United Ventures, in addition to Zest.
“This exit fully represents our business model: we supported talents driven by a strong entrepreneurial spirit and great determination with our acceleration program, initial resources and ecosystem, rapidly increasing their value up to the exit, with the entry of leading international investors. Zest, with more than 250 startups in its portfolio operating on major innovation trends, was created precisely to launch the next generation of innovative Italian companies, supporting their scale-up and extracting great value for its shareholders and the entire ecosystem,” says Luigi Capello, CEO of Zest.
“Futura is an example of how a new generation of tech-founders is poised to reshape the entrepreneurial fabric of our country: our role, thanks to the work and skills of an incredible team of professionals, is to bring out talent with the ambition to change people’s lives through technology,” says Gabriele Ronchini, CEO of Zest Investments.
“We are proud to have supported Futura from its first steps to this milestone, with the conviction that we have germinated something important for the entire Italian innovation ecosystem. Congratulations to the entire Futura team for this achievement but especially for the upcoming goals, which we are sure they will be able to hit brilliantly,” adds Giulio Montoli, iInvestments & portfolio at Zest Investments.
“Our journey at Zest gave us the tools to validate our idea and turn it into a fast-growing company. The people we met made a difference, right from the accelerator program, where from 60 clients at the beginning we went from having 60 clients in a few months to having 460. The Zest team believed in us from the very beginning and supported us every step of the way, always aligning their interests as investors with ours as entrepreneurs. The relationships, network activated and expertise provided have been fundamental to our entrepreneurial growth and the company we want to continue to develop,” emphasizes Andrea Chirolli, CEO of Futura.
Klecha & Co., an independent pan-European investment bank specializing in the tech sector, served as financial advisor to Eurazeo and Axon Partners Group in their investment in Futura.
“Edtech still accounts for only 4 percent of the global education market, or more than $300 billion, $70 billion of which is in Europe. The numbers highlight that there is enormous room for possible further growth for Edtech, a high-potential sector that I am convinced will be able to attract more and more investment, which is crucial for technological development, the evolution of education and training, and the creation of a solid ecosystem, especially in Europe,” comments Stephane Klecha, co-founder and managing partner of Klecha & Co..-We are therefore particularly happy to have been able to contribute to the finalization of the largest investment round in Italian EdTech, an operation that will contribute to Futura’s decisive development and international growth, to the point of transforming it into the reference player in Europe and the next Italian unicorn.”
In a recent Insight Report by Klecha & Co. dedicated to edtech, it is shown that in total about 30 billion euros have been invested in the sector in Europe over the past 5 years, 8 of which were invested by venture capital.
Today in Europe there are more than 12,000 edtech companies operating in different technology segments such as hardware, software and content. The ecosystem thus still appears to be highly fragmented and, according to Klecha &Co., will continue to attract not only growing investment, but will also be affected by a significant consolidation process. As of November 2023, deals in the European sector had reached a value of $11 billion, up from $9 billion in 2022.
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